The Guava Platform, which is at the centre of this PhD thesis, was initiated in 2014 as a conceptual framework of my art practice and research. The aim of the Guava Platform is to research and... Show moreThe Guava Platform, which is at the centre of this PhD thesis, was initiated in 2014 as a conceptual framework of my art practice and research. The aim of the Guava Platform is to research and create possible techniques of art-actions that are part of my quest to continue to live in the conflicted landscape, east of the Mediterranean, as an artist.This dissertation assembles the Guava art-actions: i.e. a series of three short films, an online radio station, two performances, a geotagging website, and a scent collection as well as the research into a combined space. Both the art-actions and the research convey the Guava Platform. The leading questions of the thesis are: How can time-based art-actions in a conflicted landscape induce and take part in an embodiment of constructive political imagination? If both physical and conceptual ‘movement’ are the actions’ impetus, how can these actions adjust the socio-political impasse of the landscape? And how can they contribute to a socio-political discussion of the landscape I live in?The outcome of this research is presented on a website. Here, the different components, the art-actions and texts, are not bound to a hierarchical relationship between theory and practice that might restrict their possibility to interact. Instead, the website enables the visitor to navigate between the different artistic and discursive elements in a nonlinear way. Show less
This thesis investigates Søren Kierkegaard’s place in Martin Heidegger’s first Freiburg period lecture courses. The principal questions asked are: what is Heidegger searching for in his first... Show moreThis thesis investigates Søren Kierkegaard’s place in Martin Heidegger’s first Freiburg period lecture courses. The principal questions asked are: what is Heidegger searching for in his first Freiburg period and where does he turn to Kierkegaard? The point of departure is taken from the question which Heidegger himself raises in these lecture courses: ‘what is philosophy?’ The replies given to this explicitly asked question lead to the central claims of this thesis. First, I claim that Heidegger rethinks philosophy in two directions. On the one hand, philosophy is philosophizing, a mode of access in the living situation. On the other hand, philosophy is about a proper methodology for accessing and expressing its subject matter: it is a mode of investigation. Second, I claim that Kierkegaard appears in one of these directions: when Heidegger considers access in the living situation. In addition, I show that two dominant approaches to Heidegger’s philosophy emphasize either one or the other side of what Heidegger puts forth. This insight, together with the view of how Kierkegaard appears in Heidegger’s path, makes it possible to account for the contradictory takes on Kierkegaard’s role in Heidegger’s philosophy that emerge in the secondary literature. Show less
The key questions posed in this dissertation are centred on the interaction between spectator and artwork. What happens between a spectator and an artwork? How do we experience ‘meaning’ in an... Show moreThe key questions posed in this dissertation are centred on the interaction between spectator and artwork. What happens between a spectator and an artwork? How do we experience ‘meaning’ in an artwork? How may the process of interpretation be understood and articulated? Key concepts of reception theory are extensively discussed, such as ‘the aesthetic object’ and ‘blank space’. To the extent that this is deemed necessary they are given a new denotation and a new theoretical context. Much attention is paid to the theory of German the art historian Wolfgang Kemp. Different notions of spectatorhood are put forward and critically analyzed. The research is based on an art critical practice of many years and on the personal experience of artworks.The research is focused on unravelling and problematising the theoretical terminology of the interaction between artwork and spectator, with the aim of building a new theoretical foundation for this terminology. Hermeneutics and phenomenology, especially the thinking of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, play an important role in the construction of the argument. Different concepts of spectatorhood are extensively discussed. The dissertation proposes a new set of theoretical concepts to understand the interaction between artwork and spectator. The argument is sustained by concrete examples from contemporary art and art history. Show less
In our culture, vocal harmonics fuction as independent musical elements since only a few decades. Thresholds of the audible explores the changing relationship between singers, listeners and... Show moreIn our culture, vocal harmonics fuction as independent musical elements since only a few decades. Thresholds of the audible explores the changing relationship between singers, listeners and harmonics. As a research method a series of compositions (Nulpunten/’Zeropoints’) has been developed, which attempt to make a fresh approach to overtone singing and to the sonic source material of the human body. They spark off further investigations of reality and illusion of our auditory world. Using his experiences with Tibetan monks and Sardinian brotherhoods and the ‘transverbal’ oeuvre of Michael Vetter, Mark van Tongeren develops his notion ‘multiphony of the body’. The last word, according to him, must be given to readers/listeners, who are challenged to shift their thresholds of the audible with the cd It starts here and the performance Incognito ergo sum. Show less
